I got Human Revolution on steam for 13 bucks. AAA title, amazing game, in my mind. If I wanted something like this on any other digital download, or even in store, I'd have to wait another year, maybe 2.I got Garry's mod for 7.50 bucks. I've choaked 170 hours out of it, and I'm still not board of it. As far as I'm concerned, Origin doesn't even have games as intelligently simple as garry's mod. Why would I even bother to download it when steam has EVERYTHING I need?

I didn't like it when Valve forced Steam for Half Life 2, but over time I've grown to like and accept Steam. I have most of my games there, can mod freely as it's easy to just reinstall, as well as a friends list which makes multiplayer easy, and while I don't often buy new games (Amazon is often cheaper) the sales keep me coming back to the store.

I can understand EA insisting on Origin for their games, but.. that privacy policy is nasty, the games are expensive even on older titles, and the client isn't really up to scratch. Seriously, with their resources, and the example of Steam, they should have got the thing nailed down before forcing people to use it.

While I have to use it to play some of the EA titles, I don't really want another client (and then another and another when the next publishers start thinking they can make money by having their own too).

Then there's the stories of banning, and preventing people even getting at their singleplayer stuff.. for me, this absolutely kills my trust in EA.

My boyfriend had a completely different problem with Origin and EA, and their customer service..

He bought DLC through the LIVE marketplace for an older game he owned (one of the Need for Speeds), and then found he couldn't use it.. it turned out that the game was on one EA Master ID, while his gamertag was tied to another.

The reason he had two accounts was because he'd made an account when he bought the game, and then somewhere afterwards, EA took over that company and turned it into an EA master ID account. In the meantime, he'd made an EA master account and tied his LIVE details to that, being the account he was using for the newer games.

When he first contacted customer support, they told him they couldn't merge the accounts. They couldn't remove his gamertags. They could transfer everything from the old account to the new one, but needed "proof of ownership". Mailing them from the tied email address, and listing the games wasn't apparently proof enough, and they refused to do anything, and closed the ticket.

He emailed back on a new ticket hoping for a different staffmember who might know more.. got the same customer support person, but this time he just moved everything from the 'old' account straight away.. so the story ended well, but the whole time this was going on we were wondering if they'd just continue to refuse to fix it, delete the wrong account, or ban him for being awkward!

Irridium:They could even turn Origin into their own little "used shop" for digital games. Does a gamer have a game they don't want anymore? Let them trade it in for half the current price. Give them credit to spend on Origin. Now they have a reason to keep shopping with you, and if they don't like a game, they can trade it back for more credit. Now they have a sense of security. I'd be more likely to buy a game if I knew I could get something back if I didn't like it/finished it a bit too quickly.

Reward continued spending with digital coupons. If someone, say, buys Dead Space 1, give them a coupon that halves the price of Dead Space 2 (or vice-versa). Do this with all franchises, give them coupons for other games in the franchice. Do they have each game in a particular series? Let them swap the coupon(s) with some others so they can use that to help pay for more games.

...That. Would. Be. AWESOME.

I could really go for that! I mean, I actually picked up 2 games on steam that I really regret buying (Civ 5 and Section 8, respectively), and I wish I could do something with them...

But of course, EA is a public company and if they don't give their shareholders their daily...umm..."friendly stroke" with hundred dollar bills, the shareholders will put their foot down and fire high ranking people. And of course, most of the shareholders have no freakin clue how to run a business properly, since they only care about profit growth. Ergo, EA is not likely to do anything that smart.

You have no idea how happy I am that Valve isn't a public company. Shareholders. Ruin. EVERYTHING.

That would be Gundam 00.OT: I see there are plenty of people who defend origin by saying Steam was or still is just as bad. Tell me how that excuses origin? At least with Steam it already has my trust and has a much bigger game library for me to choose from with regular sales.

What does Origin have to make me choose it over Steam. Origin is not the worst system ever, but it's also not very good. I personally like Steam and hold them in high regard. I already have a bad opinion of Origin because of the controversy surrounding it about privacy polices.They fixed all that im sure but that doesn't really give me much confidence in it. It's also made by EA who I already have a dislike for. Even if I didn't already dislike EA I would of heard bad things about them since they have such a bad reputation. So I ask again what reason is there for me to stop using Steam, a popular and generally trusted program that I already use rather than Origin, a new program several updates behind steam that has already suffered from contraversy and is being put out by EA who have a dubious reputation.

If EA had a system where you mailed in old EA games and they gave you Origin credit for them, it both removes old games from the preowned market, which they want, and guarantees new Origin customers, which they also want, without looking like they're just out to look as evil as possible.

Find out what Gamestop give for a 360 copy of Mass Effect 2, and BEAT that offer for all formats, including PC. Remember that, as with piracy, you're only losing 'potential' profit, but actually reducing the used game market and locking customers into coming back to you because they now have credit with your online store.

As for Steam being a bit shoddy when it started, if I went to the bank for a loan to start my own pizza delivery company, they'd sure as hell want to know I could do it BETTER than my local 'Pizza Hut' and better from day 1. There's no introductory period in business. Get it right or GTFO, especially when someone's shown you how it works.

As for -

Arppis:Well, I agree on having a rival for Steam. Rivaly always brings best results for us customers.

EDIT: just reported my first ever piece of spam, top of the page, why do they bother? Does anyone believe you can earn $$$ in your free time anymore, putting aside the lucrative world of prostitution?I entirely agree, but Origin sure as hell isn't it, and I fear it's not likely to change very much.

Dandark:That would be Gundam 00.OT: I see there are plenty of people who defend origin by saying Steam was or still is just as bad. Tell me how that excuses origin? At least with Steam it already has my trust and has a much bigger game library for me to choose from with regular sales.

What does Origin have to make me choose it over Steam. Origin is not the worst system ever, but it's also not very good. I personally like Steam and hold them in high regard. I already have a bad opinion of Origin because of the controversy surrounding it about privacy polices.They fixed all that im sure but that doesn't really give me much confidence in it. It's also made by EA who I already have a dislike for. Even if I didn't already dislike EA I would of heard bad things about them since they have such a bad reputation. So I ask again what reason is there for me to stop using Steam, a popular and generally trusted program that I already use rather than Origin, a new program several updates behind steam that has already suffered from contraversy and is being put out by EA who have a dubious reputation.

Also, I agree. People should not make excuses like that for origin. "Steam used to suck" is not a valid argument for why origin sucks NOW. EA should have had plenty of time to learn how to do it right. But they didn't.

That whole Mass Effect 3 being an Origin exclusive thing is why I'm probably going to just pirate it. I have the first two on Steam. If my collection is going to be fragmented anyway, I might as well just fragment it without spending $50-60 to do so via a shitty service.

I know it's a horrible waste of internet space. I know it's borderline stalker creepy. I know there's no reason for it to exist. I know it works about as well as wiping your face with sandpaper, but I promise to lay off once Mass Effect 3 comes out. I think. Dragon Age 3? Come on! I have to know how the story ends!

Maybe after that Bioware can partner with a more credible source and I can throw my money guilt-free. The people behind the Portal 2 ads sound like upstanding publishers. :D

DTWolfwood:they offered all of their previous valve games in 3 simple packages to get your Steam library going. Its too long for me to remember the exact specifics, but valve offered something like the Gold, Silver and Bronze packages. for something like $60 it included, HL, HL2 and episode1 , Richochet, Team Fortress1, Day of Defeat and DOD Source, Counter-Strike and CS Source, that single player CS (blue something). if i miss something i forgot. So yes they are doing the same thing as EA, except they seem to be giving the customers more options to start with and use steam. Where as EA just seems to want to strong arm ppl into using Origin.

Also the ORANGE BOX. HL2, HL2 ep2, TF2, and Portal for $60... yeah where is EA's multigame bundle for $60?

is EA going to give BF3 away for free so ppl would want to use Origin? You know like how Valve gave TF2 away for free after about a year of its release.

Lets do this point by point shall we?

They offered none of those packages upon Steam's startup. Especially considering half the games you named weren't out when Steam originally came out (HL2 and episode 1, episode 1 didn't come out until 3 years after Steam's launch, HL2 a year later. Day of Defeat a year later. DoD Source just came out last year...)

The Orange Box was released in 2007. Four years after Steam's launch.

TF2 went F2P in 2011 if I recall. Late 2010 maybe. So either three or four years after TF2 came out and 7 or 8 after Steam launched.

But you're expecting EA to give away one of it's biggest releases of the year a few months after launch? I don't think you'd make it in the business world, guy. I really don't think you can compare TF2 and BF3 in terms of budget and all that. Not everyone can have Valve's lax release deadlines.

Anyways, back to the original point, Steam did none of this when it came out. When it came out and even now, it's just DRM. And this coming from someone who greatly enjoys Steam sales and Valve games. They're great, but people who want to damn Origin for the same crap Steam does are ridiculous to me.

"Derp I have to use Origin it to play EA games!" So? I have to use Steam for games that aren't even made by Valve these days.

I did not use steam until they decided to sell accounts with those package deals. Had it not been for that i never would have tried steam. I wasn't a fan of HL, I only cared about the mods. So when HL2 came out i really could have cared less about it. Also when i was told it was steam required i had the same knee jerk reaction i have to Origin. No sir i do not want. But Valve decided to give out a bunch of their old games in a bundle for a price i felt was fair. So i took a leap of faith. Then the fact that Digital download of the game was so convenient, they got me hooked on the idea. Then there was the sales they did. I started to impulse buy games. So they got me invested in the system with deals and convenience. Not because they had a game I desperately wanted.

I see no particular fault in their (EA) line of thinking in holding a much anticipated game as hostage to Origin. My grip is as Shamus said in the article there is nothing Origin offers that makes me want to use it. And as I no longer have the same hype i had for ME3, and i already have BF3, Origin is useless to me. It turns on only when i want to play BF3.

I am aware that Steam is DRM. Its tolerable to me because i was never booted from my game when steam crapped out on me. Not to mention the fact i could play games i have installed in offline mode. So when EA decides to build in that little feature in to Origin i would see it in a better light as well.

Particularly speaking, if i have a game that uses Origin y would i be so object to getting another game that uses Origin that i want to play? My answer is simply I hate to have games spread over different Digital Distribution accounts. I own the hard disc version of BF3 (not that it matters tbh seeing i had to lock it with an Origin account.) It's the main reason i don't use GoG, D2D, Gamersgate, etc. I would just like the option of having all the games everywhere so i can choose to stick with one platform of delivery and not have to use a bunch. I am a man that is willing pay extra for the convenience.

That was a well thought out piece that makes a lot of sense. As it stands, I'm not invested in Origin at all. I have the Origin service on my PC. But all the games on it were bought through Amazon digital because I don't trust EA not to steal my games one day.

EA for such a big, successful company has done nothing but make mistake after mistake on the digital market. They seem unable to acclimate to it at all. Their perception is based in the physical world where they have monopolies on popular sports titles and all of these things that prevent competition. Now they are unable to compete in a world where those placeholders do not exist. They are the small dogs in the digital playground, but they just keep yapping away as if they are not. And it only makes people not like them.